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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29379573">Aloe Vera</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneezingbees/pseuds/sneezingbees'>sneezingbees</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M, egotism, etc - Freeform, luv</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:48:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29379573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneezingbees/pseuds/sneezingbees</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward took the blanket away and Joshua raised his head. He said, <i> iam te nil miseret, dure, tui dulcis amiculi?</i><br/>Has your hard heart no misery for your sweetest friend?</p><p>Joshua and Caesar go back a long time. A look at their beginning.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caesar/Joshua Graham (Fallout)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Grain of Rice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The smell of aloe always made him think of Edward. Joshua would hold the thin silver knife which had been made for this, the little minnow in his hand up to the neck of the plant. Then press and the sap would come forth like ambrosia, dripping into the glass jar which Edward would put to the wound. That sticky medicinal smell in the air; the cloying sweet. And Edward’s joke: he would say <em>aloe aloe</em>, and as the slow drip spilled, <em>‘allo Vera</em>.</p><p>And Joshua would say: who is Vera?</p><p>Vera’s my new girl.</p><p>Joshua: then you’ll have no more need of me.</p><p>Edward: I’ll always have need of you.</p><p>Joshua knew Edward knew what he was doing when he said this; knew from Edward’s steady look in his eyes that they were winding each other up. He knew Edward as he knew a book; his brown eyes spelled out all his thoughts in plain English. <em>I’ll always have need of you</em> (ha ha). But still the words played Joshua’s heart; still Joshua would smile when Edward would laugh. When Edward handed the jar back, his fingertips were warm and there was a writing callus on the thumb. Like a grain of rice.</p><p>By night they sit on the floor with the Followers camp and read their books by the fire. Edward muttering to himself: spending his hours trying to memorise the Commentarii by rote. Joshua had a copy of Catullus splayed open on his chest and he would stare at the sky. See the stars: there’s Orion’s Belt, there’s the Trident, there’s the Tears of Mother Mary. Joshua’s Latin had once been ecclesiastical, but Edward’s classical c’s and v’s pinched the words in a nice way. So if he read a poem aloud, he changed the way he spoke to cut the words on an edge.</p><p>“in ioco atque vino tollis lintea neglegentiorum,” Joshua said.</p><p>“Lintea?” Edward asked.</p><p>“I think it means napkin,” Joshua lay on his back. “It’s a poem about a napkin thief.”</p><p>And Edward would return to his book.</p><p>A final memory and a good one. The day after the napkin thief, Edward woke him with intentions of a fishing expedition. The sky above them had been the wan pink of a sun-bleached rose: there were no clouds and the morning air was gentle and deceptive. Joshua was reluctant to go, remembering how the time before it had been noon too quickly and his skin had burned red. For his troubles, he had caught nothing: the fishing line drifting purposelessly in the current. So he tried to return to bed, rolling onto his side.</p><p>Edward took his blanket away and Joshua raised his head. He said, iam te nil miseret, dure, tui dulcis amiculi?</p><p>Has your hard heart no misery for your sweetest friend?</p><p>And Edward said, semper, semper, quod se non fert piscem.</p><p>Always, always, because he cannot catch a fish himself.</p><p>It was the first proper exchange they had had in Latin together and no sooner had the words left Edward’s mouth than did they stop and grin. Then the blankets came away and Edward’s hands were rough, that grain of rice pressing against his palm. It hauled him upright, and Joshua said o me miserum! but he went, as ever he did, to stand with his sweetest friend in the river. The warp of the water around his waist, calling him downstream into the orange canyon land, was slippery with fish, cool with the morning. The thing he knew he should not do: already by eleven his skin was beginning to sting and burn. But forget that, remember this: Edward caught five dappled perch that day in the desert of good things. They ate two on the bank, grilled over the embers from last night. The oil and grease and little black scales, not even a wish that they should have some bread. Not even a murmur that soon his neck would peel.</p><p>These are his precious memories: they are the bottom of his barrel and the water of his well. Again, again, when Joshua thirsts in the years to come he strays and draws them up – but to do so is wrong. To start with them is wrong; it is getting too far ahead. It did not begin this way, nor did it end this way. But Joshua does not think of the ending.</p><p>So here is how it began.        </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Transfusion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It began with Bill Calhoun.</p><p>If you’re starting with Bill, you need to know what he looked like for Bill looked like the kind of man Joshua had never seen before. He was on the verge of too tall and didn’t move like a person; he loped along like one of those floppy eared dogs who are all legs and tail. This sort of dog he had with him too: a staggering short-hair which came up to the man’s waist and was warmed with caramel spots all over his dark toffee back. The dog kept pace with the man in spite of the fact Bill dragged his left leg and went along with the addition of a stick made of brown cedar wood; another thing Joshua had never seen before. But his long white shirt made Joshua remember the Baptists from the coast. It flapped in the wind as Bill approached, throwing up his hands.</p><p>“You must be Joshua,” Bill pumped his arm up and down like a crank. They were in a one-stop town called Last Point and they’d met outside the chemist’s at ten. For all Bill was a spectacle, Joshua was wearing a wide-brimmed hat called a Mormon Cap Bill said he’d never seen before. They were all visions of newness to one another.</p><p>“We all wear these in Ogden,” Joshua said when Bill asked. He touched the brim; there was a chalky eagle’s feather in the cap.</p><p>“Neat, very neat,” Bill said. “Got to stop by Ogden one day.”</p><p>In all likelihood Bill was being polite, but in case he wasn’t, Joshua gave warning; “They don’t like Followers in Ogden.”</p><p>“Why not? We’re great.”</p><p>“You draw blood,” Joshua said.</p><p>“You mean transfusions? Huh. Thought that was only a sin for...” Bill fanned himself with his own hat; a scoop-brimmed sort like they wore in the southern deserts. His chestnut hair was flattened across his forehead, revealing a milky-white tan-line under the fringe. The dog panted. “Well, dunno. Witnesses?”</p><p>“Yes, the Witnesses at Winona believe that,” there was a slight breeze coming up the street and it made the weathervane atop the chemist’s creak. “But so do we.”</p><p>“So what’re you then?”                                                            </p><p>Well, wasn’t that a question. Bill probably didn’t mean to give it all that significance and in that moment in that nothing town Joshua didn’t either. “We’re Mormon in Ogden.”</p><p>“Mormon?” Bill looked Joshua up and down. “Huh. They never said they were sending a Mormon.”</p><p>“Is that a problem?”</p><p>“No, no,” Bill’s voice was mild and easy. He put his hat back on his head. “Just surprised me, that’s all. Never seen a Mormon in canyon land. As long as you know your languages and your creole, you’ll get along just fine.”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>“Then no problem at all,” Bill pulled a rolled up cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it with a match. He said they’d be heading for an outpost about a mile up the road: the last one for miles once they pressed past it tomorrow. It was being tended by a man named Ed, who was one of the anthropologists of the expedition.</p><p>“You’ll like Ed,” Bill waved his cigarette as he spoke. Dust kicked up in little clouds as they walked and the sky above was the colour of a forget-me-not. The dog had no lead and led the way down the track. “Hell of a guy, funny too. First thing he’ll do is pick your brain over what you’ve read, guarantee.”</p><p>“What’s he read?” Joshua asked.</p><p>“Lotta books, lotta lotta books. Mind you, he’s supposed to be brushing up on his canyonese,” Bill said. “Or whatever it is the Horse tribe speaks down here. Bet you five caps we find him reading some irrelevant paperback he picked up at a junk shop.”</p><p>“Which languages are you looking for? The Follower I spoke to only said canyon tribal.”</p><p>“Don’t know. You’d have to ask Ed when we get there.”       </p><p>They walked a little longer in silence, broken by the soft crunch of their boots of the dirt and the breeze stirring the tall dead weeds by the side of the road. It was hot on the back of Joshua’s neck, even under the cover of the hat and there was no cloud for the sun. The outpost they were heading for appeared after half a mile: an old wooden barn with a faded red door. As promised, there was a man sitting in the shade reading who stood up and waved a hand as they got closer.</p><p>He came and met them by the gate. He was clothed all in white in a way which made him seem to shine and burn as the sun reflected off the linen. His blonde hair was dirty and growing out of a crop; his nose had been broken but when he smiled his teeth were straight. That smile was the first thing he did as he said, “Bill, you’re the devil. You forgot the water.”</p><p>Bill shook his head, “Their well looked like garbage; we’d be better off getting it from the river and using our purifier.”                                                          </p><p>“That river’s a mile and a half off, who’s gonna carry the buckets?”</p><p>Bill said, “Well, what’re you asking me a question like that for? Now I’ve got no choice but to say you.”</p><p>The Follower laughed.</p><p>“Laugh it up, but you had a lie in until noon,” Bill said. “As if it’s not gonna be you going.”</p><p>The Follower rested his head on his arms, which were crossed on top of the warm wood of the gate.  The gate was made of faded pine and shed peeling paint flakes onto the floor. The scrub-grass underneath was all worn down from people opening and shutting the thing so often. Bill put a light hand on Joshua’s shoulder and introduced him;</p><p>“This is Josh, by the way. From Ogden.”                                                                                      </p><p>“Ooh, Ogden,” the Follower said.</p><p>“He’s gonna be our translator for the canyon.” Then Bill pointed with his head, “And this rude child is that Ed I told you about. From the Boneyard.”</p><p>The Follower gave Joshua a look, and put out a square tan hand. Joshua shook it.</p><p> “Edward,” the Follower said.</p><p>“Joshua,” the Mormon replied.</p><p>“Whatever he told you about me, it’s all true,” Edward said. “You want to lend me a hand in getting up that water?”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>“Let’s wait until it gets a little cooler,” Ed said. “Or we’ll burn to a crisp out in the sun.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is an oldie I originally wrote for the kink meme and never published. Found in my archives and thought it might bring someone some joy - voila!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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